Tree-mendous savings on Xmas trees

Monday, December 07, 2015 - 01:35

Falling oil prices and a weak euro could make imported Christmas trees to the UK more than 10 percent cheaper although as Hayley Platt reports not all retailers are passing on the savings to customers.

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It's an industry worth around $4 billion dollars.
This year alone around 60 million Christmas trees are expected to be sold world wide.
But in Britain real ones could be cheaper thanks to a weak euro and low oil prices.
David Mitchell is the Christmas Tree buyer for the UK's Wyevale Garden Centres.
SOUNDBITE (English) WYEVALE GARDEN CENTRE, CHRISTMAS TREE AND PLANT BUYER, DAVID MITCHELL, SAYING:
"The euro has an affect on pricing and we've been able to deliver prices as much as 13 percent cheaper for our customers and then hold them for the 2015 season so it's great news for our customers."
Denmark and Norway are the UK's main suppliers of Christmas trees.
The Danish Nordman Fir the biggest seller.
And with the Danish Krone down around 16 percent against the pound, importers could see savings of more than 7 million pounds, according to foreign exchange specialists Foenix.
CIBC's Jeremy Stretch.
SOUNDBITE (English) CIBC, HEAD OF FX STRATEGY, JEREMY STRETCH, SAYING:
"Clearly those regional currencies in the Nordic region have been under pressure, certainly Norway and its relationship to oil and in terms of the Stocki (Sweden's Stock Exchange) in terms of the relationship to a very aggressivly easy monetary policy and obviously the Riksbank will be watching the ECB with interest, so in that context if sterling is held up even better, it does potentially make some transational benefits of some of the goods that we may well be buying from that region.'
America, Canada and Denmark are the world's biggest producers of real Christmas trees.
But when it comes to artificial trees.
The Chinese can't be beaten.
They are responsible for making almost all synthectic ones.

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